Several users have reported that they are having problems connecting to the Mac App Store. Further, users stated that this problem started after updating their Mac devices. The error message:
“Cannot Connect to App Store”
Please note that if your are having this issue on your iPhone or iPad, please see this article.
This articles explains what you can do when your Mac can’t connect to the Apple App Store and won’t download, install or update apps.
See also: Cannot Send or Receive Messages on Your Mac?
Why can’t my Mac connect to the App Store?
- First, let’s make sure that there is no network connection issues. Make sure that your Mac is connected to the Internet. Check to see if websites load in Safari or in other browsers. If not, you may try the following troubleshooting tips:
- Restart your Mac
- Restart your router/modem
- Turn off and on Wi-Fi
- Make sure that Apple Mac App Store servers is up and running. Go to the Apple’s System Status website and check. For instance, currently it is saying “Mac App Store – Completed Maintenance. 1.7% of users were affected. Customers may have been unable to make purchases from the App Store, iTunes Store, iBooks Store, or Mac App Store.” As you can see, Mac App Store was down for some users and but now it is fixed. If you do not see any problem, read on.
- Launch iTunes. From the top menu bar, click Account and then Sign out. After signing out, sign back in.
- Open the App Store on your Mac and then click Store (top menu bar) and click Sing Out and then sing back in.
- If you are using VPN or proxy to connect to the Internet, disable them to see if that fixes your problem.
- Update your Mac. If you are running macOS Mojave, go to System Preferences > Software Update and then click Check for Updates. If there is an update available, update the software on your Mac.
- On your Mac, make sure that the date and time settings are done correctly. Go to System Preferences > Date & Time to check this. You may also want to check the box for “Set date and time automatically”.
- On your Mac, complete the following steps:
- open the Keychain Access app (Applications > Utilities > Keychain Access)
- Click “System Roots”
- Double Click “DigiCert High Assurance EV root CA”
- Click “Trust” to expand it
- Change “When using this certificate” from “Use System Defaults” to “Never Trust”
- Now restart your Mac
- And, when your Mac is on, follow the same steps to change “When using this certificate” back to “Use System Defaults”
- On your Mac, follow these steps:
- Open Finder
- From the top menu, click Go > Go to Folder and enter the following:
- /var/db/crls/
- Click Go
- Delete these files: “crlcache.db” and “ocspcache.db”. You may have to enter your admin password
- And then restart your Mac.
If everything above fails you could contact Apple.
See also: This Item Is Temporarily Unavailable. Please Try Again Later
On my MacBook Air I have tried clearing the cache, restarting, and following the steps above. However, I still get the message “CANNOT CONNECT TO THE APP STORE; an internet connection is required”
My connection is good (otherwise I couldn’t get on the internet to try to solve the problem) but I still cannot access the App store. I can access anything else, but just not the App Store. (I have no problem accessing it on my iPhone.)
Same Problem. Tried everything and can’t log in or connect to the App Store only on my Mac.
I am facing the same problem, can not connect app store
AWESOME. I have looked all night for a solution to this. Thank you!
I tried virus checkers. Malwarebytes. I’ve spent HOURS looking for the solution.
This happened for me on 10.10.5 and I kept getting the “cannot connect” message no matter what I tried. The issue for me was that I recently had downloaded and started using a proxy server (Socksharex), and it changed my network setting connection preferences; it kept trying to access the proxy server, even after I had realized that I didn’t want the proxy server and deleted it and its app. This is how I fixed it:
>System Preferences
>Network
>Advanced (bottom right corner)
>Select the “Proxies” tab
>Check “Auto Proxy Discovery” and uncheck “SOCKS Proxy.”
Problem solved.
Finally a solution that worked! Thank you!!
this finally worked after searching the entire internet, spend about 4 hours until i found this thread.
Thank you this one finally worked!
Hallelujah! This worked after months of no internet radio or being able to access iTunes account. I think some software uploaded at the same time as an innocuous download for pdf reader one time and it screwed things up since then.
OMG!!!! THANK YOU!! this worked! i tried all the freaking steps above and nothing! Thank you !
This solved the issue for me as well. Also solved problem that Safari could not connect to any server on any website.
Thanks man you’re helping a lot of people out here, what a legend.
Same problem, Proxies tab didn’t fix it for me. Also Creative Cloud (Adobe) can not connect either. All other internet apps work — browsers, torrents, mail app, etc.
I had a similar problem (although the computer would freeze whenever I tried logging in with my Apple ID) after installing a new hard drive, loading El Capitan from a bootable flash drive with the installer file, then upgrading to High Sierra. I tried all of this with no success, and finally called Apple. After several attempts, it was decided the best thing to do was to boot into OSX Recovery mode, use disk utility to erase & reformat the entire hard drive, then reinstall High Sierra while still in recovery mode. This seems to have worked well — at least it fixed the Apple ID problem!
Sometimes a silly thing such as installing updates is missed. I installed the updates and it worked, kudos for this article!
Well, to install updates it needs to connect to the app store. I’m having this problem precisely because I’m trying to update and it won’t connect.
Number 8 worked perfect for me! thank you soooo much!